by Elle James
“Nice to meet you, sir.” Chase held out his hand.
Maggie’s father ignored the hand and addressed her. “Do you even know this man?”
“I do. He’s a former Navy SEAL. He’s going to work in Montana for a protection service. He loves to dance, and so do I. And he’s great in bed.” She squared her shoulders. “And he would never skip out on me with a wedding planner. He’s an honorable man, who has vowed to protect me with his own life, unlike Lloyd. What more do I need to know?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You cannot have married a man in less than twenty-four hours after meeting him. He’s a fortune hunter. A gold-digger. Well, I won’t have it.” Her father even stomped his patent leather-clad foot in his anger. “My attorneys will have the marriage annulled”
“We’ve already consummated the marriage,” Maggie said, her cheeks heating slightly.
“Then my lawyers will draw up the papers for your divorce. I will not have you married to someone I don’t approve of.”
“And how can you disapprove of a man you don’t know, Daddy?” Maggie planted her hands on her hips. “Everything I’ve learned about Chase is good. He served our country, defended our way of life and left the military honorably. He’s a good man. What has Lloyd done to prove his worth, other than have a high-paying job? A job his father gave him in the business that his father built. Lloyd never had to work hard for what he had. How does that make him a better man than Chase?” Maggie gave her father one of his own looks, staring down her nose at him. “It doesn’t. Chase is a better man than Lloyd could ever hope to be.”
“You go, sister,” Gina said, and received a killer look from Maggie’s father. “Really, Mr. Neal, Maggie wouldn’t have been happy with Lloyd. You don’t want your daughter to marry a man who doesn’t make her happy, do you?”
Maggie’s father didn’t look at Gina. His gaze remained locked on his daughter. “I don’t want any man to marry my daughter for my money.” His gaze shifted to Chase, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ll give my money to charity before I let it go to someone who marries my daughter to get to my fortune.”
Chase’s body stiffened next to Maggie. “Is that what this is all about? You think I married your daughter to get to your money?” He laughed, the sound jarring on Maggie’s ears. “I don’t know who you are, or how much money you’re worth. Nor do I care. I have enough of my own. Money I saved while on active duty, defending your right to make as much money as you want. Defending your way of life. I put my life on the line for you, Maggie and every American because it’s what I believe in. I don’t want your money. I have my own. Money I earned with my blood, sweat and a few tears along the way. I hope to use that money to buy a small ranch in Montana. It won’t be much, but it’ll be enough. Enough to live on, to raise a few horses and cows and, maybe, a family. I have an honorable job awaiting me in Montana. One that will allow me to provide for your daughter and any children that might come along. What more do I need?”
Maggie smiled, her eyes glistening. “Nothing.” She’d only ever wanted a place to call her own. A place she could get to know the neighbors and establish relationships with people who didn’t work for her.
“Hell, Chase,” Gina said. “You make me wish you’d chosen me.”
“Hey,” Carson cut in. “He’s married.”
“Right.” Gina grinned. “He’s married to my best friend, and I couldn’t be happier for them.”
“And right now, Chase and I are headed to the airport to return to the States,” Maggie said. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way.”
“Why are you headed to the States?” her father asked, his expression sour. “If you just married, I would have thought you’d stick around here to enjoy your honeymoon.”
Maggie scrambled for an excuse that didn’t involve telling her father she had a death threat out on her, and Chase was certain to be killed if he met with the cartel leader. “Uh. We’ve decided we’d prefer to spend our honeymoon in Montana. I much prefer the mountains to getting sand in my shorts.”
“I’m not done with you, young lady.” Her father stepped in front of her, blocking her path.
“Daddy, I’m twenty-eight years old. I don’t need your permission to do what I want. If I want pepperoni on my pizza, I’ll have pepperoni on my pizza.”
Her father stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “What in the fool-darn-hell are you talking about?”
“I’m going. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Dragging her suitcase behind her, Maggie dodged her father and headed for the elevator. For the first time in her life, she’d stood up to her father and walked away with the last word.
Maggie had never felt more empowered.
Chase started to pass Mr. Neal, when the man shifted to stand in front of him. This wasn’t the best first impression a man could make on his father-in-law, but he couldn’t worry about it now. Not when Maggie was still in danger.
Mr. Neal poked a finger into Chase’s chest. “If you so much as make my daughter cry, I’ll hire a hit man and put you out of her misery. Do you understand?”
Chase didn’t bother to tell Mr. Neal that all of Maggie’s protestations were bogus, and that she planned to ditch him as soon as it was humanly possible. Annulment, divorce, whatever it took, she planned to untie the knot they’d forged with tequila and good times on the beaches of Cabo.
He couldn’t blame her or her father for their skepticism. If he had a daughter, he’d be livid if she married a guy after knowing him for only a few hours. He’d be worried like Maggie’s father that he’d married her for other than honorable reasons.
“Sir, I can assure you I’m not after your money. Your daughter is special. She’s a beautiful woman who deserves to love whomever she wants. But she also deserves someone who respects her and treats her right. I can promise you, I would never hurt your daughter. I only want to protect her. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going with my wife.” He pushed past Mr. Neal and joined Maggie at the elevator just as the bell rang and the doors slid open. He’d just promised Maggie’s father he’d protect her. Hell, he’d already promised himself that he would. Now, he had to live up to that promise.
As he stepped into the elevator, he heard a shout from the hallway. “Hey, wait up.”
When the doors started to close, Chase pushed the button to keep them open long enough for Trevor to slide through. Then he turned and held the doors for Carson.
Trevor let go of the door and grinned. “We thought you might need backup getting to the airport.”
Carson grimaced as he punched the button for the ground level. “I feel kind of sorry for the ladies we left with Maggie’s father.”
“Me, too,” Maggie said. “He’ll be grilling Gina about now.” Her lips curled upward at the corners. “She’ll give him hell. She loves pushing all of his buttons.”
“I love when she pushes all of mine,” Carson said. “That’s one sassy female.” He clapped his hands together. “Just the way I like them.”
Maggie frowned. “Don’t you hurt my friend.”
Carson held up his hands. “I wouldn’t dare. Besides, she scares me.” He chuckled. “I haven’t felt this alive since I came down to Cabo San Lucas. I didn’t realize how much I missed all the action and danger associated with being a Navy SEAL.” He turned to Chase. “I don’t suppose your boss in Montana could use another SEAL on his team, could he?”
“It doesn’t hurt to ask. All he could say is no.” Chase slipped an arm around Maggie’s waist and pulled her close. “Remind me to give you his phone number.”
Carson nodded. “Will do.”
When they reached the ground floor, the doors slid open, and the three men escorted Maggie to the concierge’s desk where she requested a taxi cab to take them to the airport.
As they waited inside the lobby for the taxi to arrive, Chase kept a vigilant eye on the people coming and going. If anyone looked the least bit suspicious, he’d be ready to throw himself in front of Magg
ie to protect her from harm.
Nothing happened, and soon one of the hotel valets came through the door and motioned for them to come. “Your taxi has arrived.”
Chase slipped his arm around Maggie again and pressed his body close to hers, providing a shield of flesh and bone to protect her against bullets, knives or other forms of attack.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention as he walked out of the lobby. Carson and Trevor were his wingmen, also providing a human shield to protect Maggie.
A taxi cab stood at the curb. The valet hurried forward to open the door for her.
Chase motioned for Maggie to slide in first.
Trevor rounded the back of the vehicle to the other side.
Carson stood at the trunk, ready to toss the luggage inside as soon as the driver popped the latch.
Just as Chase lifted his foot to slide into the vehicle beside Maggie, the driver punched the accelerator.
The car shot forward so fast, Chase couldn’t get inside. Trevor, who’d rounded the back of the vehicle, couldn’t get to the door fast enough to yank it open and jump in.
The cab, with Maggie inside, whipped away from them, barreling down the street.
Chase ran after the cab but couldn’t catch up. Finally, he ground to a halt, whirled and ran back to where his buddies stood. He bent over, breathing hard for several seconds before he straightened and stared after the disappearing taxi cab with his wife inside. This was not the plan he’d envisioned.
“What do we do now?” Trevor asked.
Chase squared his shoulders, his jaw tight, his fists clenched. “Looks like I’ll meet with Delgado at midnight, unless we can come up with a better plan.”
Chapter 8
As soon as the vehicle took off, Maggie knew she was in trouble.
“Chase!” she cried out. With the sudden goosing of the accelerator, the open door to the back seat slammed shut. She reached for the door handle and pulled hard, but it wouldn’t open. The child locks had been activated. The only way she could get out was if someone opened the door from the outside.
She spun in her seat and looked back, praying Chase and his friends could somehow stop the vehicle and free her.
Chase ran after the car but was soon left behind as the cab shot forward, moving faster and faster. Before long, Chase stopped running and turned back to join his friends.
Despair fell like lead to the pit of Maggie’s belly. All their planning to get out of the country went up in the smoke of the burned rubber from the tires spinning across pavement. She had no doubt she was on the way to Raul Delgado, the leader of the Jalisco cartel.
Sure, she was afraid for her own life, but now that she was a prisoner, she knew Chase would come after her. He’d be tortured and killed. Possibly like the men who’d been hung from the bridge a week before.
Maggie couldn’t let that happen. In the short time she’d known Chase, she’d discovered a decent human being. A man others should be more like. A man who would selflessly defend his country and those weaker than himself. He’d come for her and put himself at risk.
Chase had faced untold horrors and risks as a Navy SEAL. He deserved to enjoy his life now that he was out of the military. She couldn’t let him risk everything to save her. She had to find a way out of this mess before Chase met Delgado at the proposed deadline.
The particular cab she was in was more modern than most. Maggie searched the interior for a weapon, anything she could use to crack a window or the unbreakable Plexiglas barrier between the front and back seats. She couldn’t reach around to grab the driver by the neck and force him to stop, but she had to get out of the vehicle before she was delivered to the cartel leader. Once in his hands, she’d be surrounded by far too many of his minions to make an escape. Escape had to be now or never.
Banging against the shield between her and the driver did nothing to make him slow the vehicle. Maggie kicked at the window, knowing her soft-soled shoes wouldn’t be effective, but she had to try. She dug in her purse for anything she could use to break the window, but all she could find was a pen and an emery board, neither of which were strong enough to break through the glass. She tried sliding the emery board down between the window and the door to trigger the locking mechanism. When the driver took a turn too sharply, Maggie lost her grip on the emery board, and it slipped out of her grip and was lost inside the door. She tried ripping the door apart, but only managed to break her fingernails. The seat had been cleaned of all objects. Not even an umbrella existed inside the confines of the back seat.
When all her efforts failed, Maggie turned in her seat and looked out the back window at the disappearing resort hotel. With no cell phone, she couldn’t call and tell them which way they were headed, and she couldn’t use the hard case of the cellphone to help her break the window. She was stuck and on her way to meet a killer.
The cab weaved between the streets and alleys, leaving the more affluent neighborhoods of timeshare condos and vacation homes and heading into the outlying areas of tin-roofed shacks and concrete-block buildings with laundry hanging from clotheslines and windows. The farther away from the beach they went, the deeper into despair Maggie sank.
How could Chase find her? He would be left with no other choice but to show up when Delgado demanded. The problem was, even if he did show up, Delgado probably wouldn’t let her go in exchange for Chase’s cooperation. He’d have Chase and no other reason to keep her alive. He’d certainly make an example of Chase to his men and everyone else in Cabo.
Her heart beat fast, and her chest hurt at the thought of Raul Delgado hanging Chase from a bridge. She couldn’t let that happen. Somehow, she had to get away before midnight and let Chase know he didn’t have to meet with Delgado. She’d find her way back to the airport, they’d catch the next flight back to the States and she and Chase would live happily ever after.
And pigs would learn to fly.
The cab weaved through narrow streets and roads, climbing into the hills surrounding Cabo San Lucas. Soon, they turned into a gated compound surrounded by high stucco walls. Armed guards stood on either side of the vehicle. The driver spoke in Spanish to them. One of them relayed a message via a hand-held radio. The staticky response came back, and the gate opened. The driver pulled into the compound, and the gate slid shut behind them.
Maggie studied the fence, the gate and the surrounding grounds, committing to memory everything she could see. If—no, when she escaped, she would have to navigate the grounds in the dark. How she’d get over the seven-foot walls, she wasn’t certain, but she’d cross that hurdle once she was free of her confinement.
The vehicle came to a halt in front of a sweeping, white marble staircase leading up to rich mahogany double doors.
The doors opened, and several men, armed with what looked like military-grade rifles, emerged and surrounded the vehicle.
Maggie forced calm to her hammering heart. She couldn’t show fear. To escape her current situation, she had to use her head. Cowering in terror would get her nowhere.
The door opened, and a man reached inside, grabbed her arm and dragged her out onto the brick paving stones of the driveway.
“Let go of me, you Neanderthal.” Maggie jerked her arm free and straightened.
Laughter sounded from the top of the stairs. A Hispanic man dressed in white trousers, a black button-up shirt and sunglasses looked down on her. He was surrounded by four men dressed in black, wearing sunglasses, radio headsets in their ears and carrying more military-style rifles.
The man at the center nodded to the men surrounding the taxi. He spoke quickly in Spanish. “Traeme a la mujer,” he commanded.
The man she’d shaken loose from grabbed her arm. When she struggled to be free, another man gripped her other arm. Together, they half-dragged, half-carried her up the stairs to stand in front of the man in the tailored, white trousers.
All Maggie could think of was how much she wanted to bloody those white trousers. The man had to be
Delgado—a dangerous man, full of his own sense of self-worth, bent on retribution for being bested in front of his men.
Maggie glared at the man who terrorized entire cities and preyed on innocents. Carson had told her of how Delgado steals young girls and sells them into the sex trade, and how his thugs make millions trafficking drugs and humans across the border into the United States. She had no respect for this man. Especially when he wanted to make an example out of her husband. To hell with that. Maggie vowed to get out of Delgado’s compound as soon as possible. She just had to play along and pretend to be a poor, weak female who didn’t have a brain in her head. Then, perhaps, he’d think she was too dumb and wimpy to find a way out of captivity.
“You are the gringo’s esposa,” he said and touched a hand to her hair. “Tu eres una mujer bonita. Beautiful.” He captured strands of her blond hair between his fingers and rubbed them as if testing the texture.
Maggie longed to slap his hand away and wipe the smirk off his face. But she let her poker face fall into place, masking any emotion the man could use against her. She’d learned to play poker from her father. He was a master of poker faces and had taught her the secrets of bluffing from a very young age. Her father had made a killing in the oil speculation business by cloaking his emotions and making the best possible deals through patience and cunning.
If Maggie hoped to get out of Delgado’s compound alive, she had to use her mind. Though she was physically fit, she was no match for the superior strength of Delgado’s male entourage.
“Your esposa will be at La Casa Loca tonight. He will not want anything to happen to his pretty bride.” He clasped her chin in his grip and turned her face up to his. “But once I’m done with him, tú me perteneces. You will be mine.”
Maggie bit down hard on her tongue to keep from telling the man to go to hell.